"Heart of the Shamans: Ceremonial Medicine Songs"

Heart of the Shamans CD by Liquid Bloom with Robert Mirabal, vocalists Ixchel Prrisma, Sarah West and Rara Avis offers shamanic music with global rhythms, nature sounds and evocative vocals for healing music and yoga instrumental music.

Heart of the Shamans was conceived as a sonic prayer, a lovingly-crafted ritual transport into the heart of the universe. Its original arrangements by producer Amani Friend – aka Liquid Bloom - are skillfully interwoven with threads of global rhythms, sounds of natural atmospheres and evocative vocals.

A voyage through the energy centers of the body, this music is designed to support ceremonial trance states of awakening. Weaving powerful voices and instrumentation from around the world into a layered, multi-dimensional sonic tapestry resonant with ancestral depths, the music is inspired by such diverse sources as indigenous ceremonial dances of New Mexico's deserts and pueblos, and sacred traditional ayahuasca invocations from Amazonian rainforest cultures.

The album's liner notes offer guidance for participatory, immersive listening. A succession of mudras – traditional hand gestures from India believed to provide physical points of reference and increase energy flow throughout the body – are also suggested to enhance the participant's experience, each specific to one of the album's six major compositions.

Also included are two bonus remixes, of songs from Liquid Bloom's debut album, Shaman's Eye, which were created specifically for trance journeying. Their multi-layered currents of sound and chanting have been freshly remixed to embrace Ixchel Prrisma's sacred medicine songs.

Some of the outstanding artistic contributions to this project include Native American music legend Robert Mirabal with his Taos flutes and chant, the sacred medicine songs of vocalist Ixchel Prrisma, the ethereal voice of Sarah West and overtone singing by Rara Avis, to name a few. 

A portion of proceeds from all sales of this album will benefit The Paititi Institute for the Preservation of Ecology and Indigenous Culture, a nonprofit organization devoted to the integration of indigenous wisdom into every day life. Heart of the Shamans is available at Amazon.com.

Drumming in the Eastern Sierra

Hiking to a sacred spring in the Sierras

For the past few weeks, I have been on a pilgrimage to the sacred sites in the Eastern Sierra that beckon me. So far I have soaked in Buckeye and Travertine Hot Springs near Bridgeport, CA, which Jack Kerouac and his "dharma bums" once used as a base to explore the Eastern Sierra. I then soaked in the Rock and Shepherd Hot Tubs in the Long Valley Caldera. On Monday April 27, I made a four mile trek through the earth's oldest living forest to drum in the Methuselah Grove of the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest. It was an incredible day and I look forward to returning again to the Bristlecones. On Wednesday April 29, I hiked with three friends to a sacred spring high in the Sierras, or Range of Light, where we drummed and did a pipe ceremony.

The Sleeping Lizard

To celebrate May Day or Beltane, I visited the Sleeping Lizard, which is an ancient vision quest site located in the Volcanic Tablelands north of Bishop, CA. This site is sacred to the Owens Valley Paiute people, who use alcoves in the rock for vision quests. I took a journey back in time to visit the ancient ones who etched petroglyphs in the volcanic rock. 

On Saturday, I participated in a Sweat Lodge purification ceremony on the Big Pine Paiute Indian Reservation in Big Pine, CA. The Sweat Lodge is a place of spiritual sanctuary and mental and physical healing, a place to get answers and guidance by asking spirit helpers, the Creator, and Mother Earth for needed wisdom and power. More drumming and ceremonies are planned for the days ahead.

"Dying Well: Shamanic Wisdom"

Streaming live on the Co-Creator Radio Network on Tuesday, April 28, at 11am Pacific/2pm Eastern on "Why Shamanism Now? A Practical Path to Authenticity," shaman and founder of the Last Mask Center for Shamanic Healing Christina Pratt notes that dying is part of life; it's that simple. According to Pratt, when death is accepted as a natural part of our journey, an extraordinary amount of energy can be set free for you to be happy, discover your purpose, and help others. Shamanism shows us that the end of life is just as important as the beauty of birth at the beginning. Living in fear of death contorts our lives, robbing us of Death as a great ally for how to live well. "It is not death but an unlived life that should terrify us," explains Pratt, "this becomes ever more clear with each ancestral healing." When we understand how our unlived lives and unreconciled relationships bind us here at death, we understand what is needed to live well. Prior episodes from "Why Shamanism Now" can be downloaded for free from iTunes.

The Transformative Power of Shamanic Art

"Flame Swan" by Denita Benyshek

Dr. Denita Benyshek is a professional visionary artist, an internationally recognized researcher on contemporary artists as shamans, and a psychologist who provides psychotherapy and coaching services to artists and creative individuals. Dr. Benyshek recently composed an article in which she explains how contemporary artists serve as shamans and demonstrates the transformative benefits offered by art. According to Dr. Benyshek, art can provide for psychological, social, physiological, and/or spiritual needs of individuals and communities. When an individual is engaged with art (as an artist, member of the audience, or collector), art can evoke memories, make new connections, heighten awareness, discharge repressed emotions, halt patterns of repression, lead to self-discovery, create empathy with individuals or cultures, remind society of social ills needing attention, and lead to individual and societal healing. To learn more read "The Transformative Power of Shamanic Art" by Dr. Denita Benyshek.